Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Trot

“You can ask why all day long, and you may never find the answer,” Nixonsaid. “You just keep plugging away and doing what you can to help the team winballgames, and let that decision be made by other front offices.”

I would hope and expect that Nixon would never answer a question like "why aren't you on a major league roster" by saying "because I'm circling the drain," but the answer is pretty clear:

Yes, he's raking at AAA right now, but as declines go, they don't come more obvious. It always amazes me when reporters seek out former major leaguers on their way back down the ladder for comment on this sort of thing. He's either going to say he's still got it or else you're going to get an awkward and depressing quote, and who really wants to hear that?

7 comments:

Well, the easy answer to this question was that up until Friday, AZ's 40 man roster was full and no obvious roster move available to give Trot the call. But all that changed when Brandon Medders was DFA'd. Its painfully obvious that Eric Byrnes either needs to ride the pine on a regular basis or hit the DL to get his hamstrings healthy. Of course, he "breaks" out of his 6 week slump with 2 HRs over the weekend and probably bought himself some more time. That said, I think the general consensus among any DBacks fan with a brain is that we'd rather see Nixon get a shot for a couple weeks. He's no savior, but he can't perform any worse than Byrnes has been. With Justin Upton and Mark Reynolds struggling as well, this team needs something to kick it back into gear.

The inconsistency is all apart of being a young team. They'll figure it out because they have too much talent not to. As for Byrnes, even though people say that he doesn't feel as though he has to carry the team, I do see a correlation between Byrnes' May slide, Upton's May slide, and the team's struggles. I think when you're the only $10 million dollar man, there is more pressure, whether you want to admit it or not. Nixon might help as a platoon, but I doubt if he is a decent solution.

Just gotta hope that Byrnes has sucked because of his injuries and not sucked because he's showing his true skill set. This team needs him to be average (100 OPS+) especially after wasting $30M on him. If he can get healthy and produce at that clip, the signing will still look foolish but not a tragedy.

I didn't click through to the article but....am I imagining it or are there more veteran minor league "organizational" type players on big leauge rosters this season? Off the top of my head, ( and I know some of these guys have been demoted ) Rico Washington, Luis Rivas, Hauffpair ( sic probably ), Nick Evans, Fernando Tatis, Jorge Velandia, Augie Ojeda, Paul Janish ( ok, injuries ), Luis Maza, Joe Inglett, Elliot Johnson, Brandon Boggs ( is he in this category? ), Marci / Macri? Msomething ( the Twins IF )

I don't know, my instincts tell me that reading the boxscores this season I have run across more unfamiliar ( most of those above I knew of prior to this season ) names than in previous seasons.